The Martial Unity

Sternon nodded, his translucent eyes sharpening. “I’ve been on many a mission against native lifeforms, and I can tell you that they’re a complete pain to deal with when they have the terrain advantage. Even if we are superior pathwalkers, these are not easy to take on when they’re at their strongest. Our greatest strength is that we have higher-quality combat assets, and that will allow us to create a powerful base as long as we stick together atop the planet. But if they’re able to dig underground this smoothly, then we’re going to have to sleep with one eye open. I imagine that our commissioners are going to brief us on the intelligence gathered and break down a plan to take on these monsters, though.”

He was right. Soon enough, they had received an information package from the Pathwalker Management Division of the Blood Humanist Society aboard the Blood Arc, consisting of a virtual meeting.

They immediately accepted the virtual meeting invite, finding themselves in a virtual conference room-like setting in a semi-circular seating arrangement facing a virtual podium, where several figures had been gathered.

Some of whom Ria and Runark recognized, having seen them prior in Arastia’s office. Several hemosapiens led by a man who looked to be in his late twenties. wore a hemotechnological exosuit that was themed red with strange advanced circuitry running across it from head to toe. His blood-red eyes were sharpened as they directed a sweeping gaze that swept across the gathered commissioned pathwalkers across the virtual meeting. “Schoel,” Ria muttered under her breath, remembering his name.

“Pathwalkers, this briefing is being conducted to brief you on the intelligence that we have gathered and the plan of action that we have put in place,” the man spoke with a firm but calm tone of voice. “Planet Amadeus III has been confirmed to be an infected world with lifeforms that appear to have integrated esoteric matter into their physiology to produce outcomes that are beyond the scope of what ordinary organic lifeforms would be capable of producing.”

He transmitted an information package to all of them as images emerged behind him in the virtual meeting. They were images that featured a close-up image of the native alien species of Planet Amadeus III.

None of them had quite seen a lifeform like the strange turquoise, furry-looking half-human, a quarter spider, and a quarter scorpion-like creature. The upper body of the creature had a strangely humanoid element to it, with arm-like and even finger-like appendages. It had an abdomen, torso, and even a neck and a head covered in a layer of turquoise fur that stood out. The heads of the creatures were chillingly eerie; they had numerous eye-like sensory organs that were checkered across the skull. Their lower half resembled a spider that also possessed an appendage that resembled the stinger of a scorpion from which they shot their strange web fluid that magically negated gravity and drag, allowing it to fling into outer space and reach even spaceships in orbit, binding onto them swiftly.

It caused the entire planet to look fuzzy as strange, minute fibers emerged from its surface, connecting to the many human ships that orbited around Planet Amadeus III.

“These are our enemies.” Schoel declared with a serious expression. “They are the native lifeforms of Planet Amadeus III. Their combat prowess, on average, is estimated to be rank two based on the preliminary analyses of our analytics department. Based on spectrographic analyses, their web fluid hardens upon contact with another solid, gaining extreme tensile strength and adhesion, and is composed of esoteric matter, which is one of the pieces of evidence that serves as proof that this world is infected.”

His expression grew more serious. “You all know the protocol from here on out, but I will expound on it anyway.”

He pointed to an animation of Planet Amadeus III, one that featured a cross-section of the planet and its various layers. “The biggest threat of an infected world comes not from its native lifeforms, necessarily, but rather from…”

He pointed to the crust and the mantle. “…the virus that has infected the planet, often taking the form of bacteria of the deep biosphere. This is the biggest problem, and it is what was responsible for the two alien invasions into Gaia Prime more than thirteen years ago, before the Era of Expansion even began. It poses an existential threat not just to us in the vicinity of this planet, but also to the entirety of the human race. And thus, eradicating it is the highest priority. Which requires the superweapon that we have obtained authorization for.”

An image featuring a single drop of pure chaos and death emerged on screen.

“The Tide of Samsara.”

A poison that belonged to the most powerful Martial Artist alive.

“It’s a superweapon that has been programmed to destroy the alien virus and nothing but the alien virus, while preventing the series of events that led to the alien invasion to Gaia Prime the first time the alien virus from that planet was destroyed,” he remarked. “However, in order to activate the weapon, we must produce a sample of the crust and the mantle to the poison, which possesses the capacity for intelligence, for it to analyze. Once the poison confirms the presence of the alien virus, we will gain the needed authorization. Of course, as you must have guessed…”

He turned back towards them knowingly. “…getting a sample of the mantle and the core will require sending a geological sampling extractor to extract a geological sample from the planet. Ordinarily, this could simply be deployed from space and land on the planet, but…”

He gestured to the homoarachnoid. “With these creatures intervening, the extractor has no chance of surviving. And that brings us to phase one of the operation.”

His eyes sharpened.

“We will defend the extractor on the ground at all costs with a tiered concentric rotating security parameter that will allow us to fend off attacks from homoarachnoids until we are able to acquire the needed sample,” he elaborated. “Once that’s done, we will have the Tide of Samsara authorized to exterminate the virus and wipe out the virus in one fell swoop.. And then we can finally commence the extraction operations on the ground with heavy, industrial-grade mining infrastructure.”

He directed a sweeping gaze across the virtual conference.

“Any questions? Because if not, we will move right away.”